


Could Have Been

by iulia_linnea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iulia_linnea/pseuds/iulia_linnea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written on 25 July 2007 in response to svartalfur's prompt of <i>I'd love to see some Grindelwald/Dumbledore, Dumbledore visits a defeated Grindelwald in his prison cell at Nurmengard</i>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Could Have Been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Svartalfur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Svartalfur/gifts).



> Written on 25 July 2007 in response to svartalfur's prompt of _I'd love to see some Grindelwald/Dumbledore, Dumbledore visits a defeated Grindelwald in his prison cell at Nurmengard_.

"Gellert."

Without turning, Grindelwald asked, "Did you bring it? Do you have it?"

"Do you truly believe that I would have been allowed a wand? Here?"

Slowly, Grindelwald craned his neck to glare over his shoulder at Dumbledore. "Not afraid to face me without one, then?"

"No."

"Liar!" Grindelwald spat, throwing himself off the cot on which he'd been sitting. "Coward!" he shouted, hurling himself toward Dumbledore. "Thi—eeef!" he exclaimed furiously, his word drawn out in his surprise at discovering the cell's restraining enchantments, which had activated to hold him fast in the air.

"I'm fine," Dumbledore said, as the sounds of the guards' hurried footsteps stopped behind him. "Leave us, please. I was promised ten minutes' uninterrupted time."

The guards moved hastily away while the two wizards glared at one another. A minute's silence followed, during which Grindelwald was slowly released from his invisible bonds. 

When he was once again on his feet, he declared, "You are a coward, a betraying coward of everything in which we believe!"

"But at least I'm not a murderer."

Grindelwald laughed. "Ah, so that is why you're here? You've won it from me, and you believe that means I'll absolve you? Fool." 

"No, I'm not here for that," Dumbledore replied. 

"Liar. 'Ten minutes' uninterrupted time'—time in which you wouldn't have been parted from it, not you, not even if you're ill-disposed to beg for my compliance—let me see it."

"I—"

"Let. Me. See. It," Grindelwald demanded, circling around Dumbledore until he stood behind the other wizard. Whispering against the back of his neck, Grindelwald hissed, "I know you want me to see it, see it in your hands, see it in your hands and know that I can't touch it as once I did."

Dumbledore jerked away and strode forward, turning on Grindelwald and brandishing the Elder Wand with a shaking hand.

"Ah, yes. I knew you wouldn't be parted from it so soon, my friend, my own fool. How does it feel, Albus? How does it feel to hold such power but be impotent to wield it?"

"I should kill you for that."

"For that? For words? Not for her?"

Dumbledore's jaw set, and the trembling of his hand stopped. "You will not speak of her, even indirectly."

"And why won't I speak of dear broken Ariana?"

"You know why!"

"You want me to take the blame for her. That's why you're here."

"Tell . . . tell me what you did, tell me, and I'll let you . . . touch it."

Grindelwald's eyes fixed upon the wand in Dumbledore's hands for a long moment, and then he turned his back on the wizard. "Never.You shall not receive absolution from me. We are both of us murderers."

"Gellert. . . . Gellert, please."

"Get out. Don't return. Keep your useless stick. I . . . I don't want it anymore."

"Gellert."

"GET OUT!" Grindelwald raged, turning on Dumbledore again, his arms outstretched, fingers reaching for Dumbledore's eyes—he barely missed them before the enchantment bound him again.

Dumbledore sheathed the wand just before the guards reappeared.

"With respect," one of them began to say.

"I'm leaving," Dumbledore replied. "Spare your courtesies."

"Oh, yes! Spare them. He has no use for them, not the great Albus Dumbledore!" Grindelwald taunted, as the man in question exited the cell. "It could have been you, Albus! It could have been you!"

"It wasn't," he whispered.

The cell bars clanged shut, reverberating in a deafening echo, but Grindelwald's words echoed louder still: "It could have been you!"


End file.
